“I had accounts with seven or eight different companies in the end — StanJames, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Sunderlands and others.

“If one account runs down, you can use another. And the accounts mean you can hide what you’re doing very well. You can place a bet while you’re sitting down to dinner with your family or having a conversation with your wife.

“In my case, that’s Sarah — the woman who kept things on the road for us in the most challenging times you could imagine eight years ago.

“I’d been diagnosed with cancer and while I was in hospital, in and out of consciousness after major brain surgery, she was the rock of our little family.

John Hartson made millions in his career but wife Sarah was unable to pay the bills

“She was pregnant, she looked after the children, she ran the household and then — despite everything she had done — I came out of hospital and carried on with the gambling.

“This was a man who earned millions. My wife couldn’t pay the bills.”

And it is second wife Sarah, who Hartson married in 2009, that he credits with saving him – but only after she walked out.

Hartson, who said he has taken calls from six Premier League managers in the past six months asking him to help a player with gambling problems, added: “It was because of Sarah that I stopped in the end.

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